Duck and Ducks
by Daeli Winter
Summary: Nosedive already knew that humans had a lot of weird stuff on their planet, but this plushie of a half-naked duck definitely takes the cake. Disclaimer: All characters belong to Disney.


Since the day he and the rest of the Mighty Ducks crash-landed on Earth, Nosedive's gotten to know both the planet and its humans pretty well, and by now he can admit, at least to himself, that he doesn't dislike either of them half as much as he pretends to do.

He misses Puckworld, of course he does – as much as he loves the Pond, Puckworld will always be _home_ , and there are days where he wishes they'd never followed Dragaunus through that wormhole – but most of the time he actually feels alright about their situation. Because as much as he likes to complain about the humans, there really are a lot of cool things about Earth.

Among those are Thrash and Mookie: the radest, coolest, most awesome dudes on planet Earth-a-mundo and his absolute favorite humans. He loves hanging out with them – playing video-games, reading comic books or just talking about how bogus the adults in their lives are. He's never had better friends then those two, not even back on Puckworld. They get him in a way that no other humans do and probably never will.

Heck, they even get him better than some of his team-mates – Mal especially is always griping about what he does on his free time, like there's something bad about goofing off when you have a day free from training and no one tries to blow up the world for once. Nosedives likes being the goof-ball. Someone has to be, and in Nosedive's humble opinion, he's really, really good at it.

Luckily for Nosedive, he's got the best big brother in the whole universe. Wildwing always lets Nosedive spend his free time doing whatever he wants, as long as he takes hockey-training and fighting evil seriously – which he does... most of the time – and he's never late to tell their team-mates (mostly Mallory) to back off if they complain about Nosedive's hobbies. Sometimes Wildwing will even join Nosedive, Thrash and Mookie when they're on a video-game binge, even though Nosedive knows that Wildwing doesn't enjoy video-games half as much as they do.

Those are some of his favorite days.

Anyway, back to the humans. Not only are some of them awesome – only some of them, because, _man_ , are some of them annoying – they also have a lot of cool stuff. Their video games are awesome. Most of their music is too. And the food! Humans have so many different kinds of food that Nosedive is sure that he'll never get to try everything they have to offer. That no one on Puckworld had ever thought of pizza blows his mind every day. If they ever get back, he'll definitely make a fortune on the recipe!

Or maybe not. Wing would probably think that it counts as stealing. Oh well, he never wanted to be a baker anyway.

Humans also play hockey, which Nosedive knows for a fact that many aliens don't. That had instantly made Earth bearable to live on right from the start and Nosedive knows that they could have had it so much worse. Imagine living on a planet where no one knows what hockey is! It would have driven him insane to be stranded on such a bum planet.

And then there's the nature. Earth is just so... green. There are forests and fields and jungles and – and – and other green places. Nosedive can admit that when it comes to looking pretty, Earth is way above Puckworld.

Camping sucks, though. Wildwing once took the the team out to the mountains for a 'getting out of the city'-team bonding exercise. Nosedive and Tanya had been miserable, because technology is the best thing ever and not having it is just so boring. Duke had been miserable because there had been no fast food in a hunded miles, and all they'd had to eat was lame camp-food that not even Grin could make taste good.

Of course Wing and Mal enjoyed it every single thing about camping in the middle of nowheresland, but that was mostly because Wing used to be a Camp Duckling when he was little, and Mallory is military, which meant that they were the only ones who knew what they were doing. This gave Wing the opportunity to play big brother to everyone, – which he loves to do – helping them with their tents, getting the fire roaring, stuff like that, while it gave Mallory the opportunity to show off – which is what _she_ loves to do.

Grin just meditated through it all. As usual. He probably enjoyed it as well. Probably. You never can tell with Grin.

Yeah, Earth definitely has its good points.

But, just to be fair, there's also a lot of stuff that's worse about Earth when you compare it to Puckworld. And the stuff that are worse are much _, much_ worse.

There are a lot more criminals on Earth than on Puckworld. Like, way, _way_ more criminals. The reason Duke's crew had been so infamous back on Puckworld is because they had been pretty much the only large scale group of thieves that existed on the entire planet. And they'd also never actually hurt other ducks. They just stole stuff.

Murder happened; ducks aren't perfect, after all. But it was really rare, like once every two months rare, and not every single day like it is on Earth. He knows that the others, especially Duke and Wildwing, discuss it from time to time, especially when they think he's not around to hear it. Nosedive simply chalks it up to humans being more prone to playing dirty than ducks – like, how many powerplays had they gotten just because some humans couldn't play by the rules? – and leaves the question largely unanswered.

The weather's much warmer, and sometimes he misses Puckworld's ice-covered streets so badly that he'll spend an entire evening just skating in the rink. He knows he isn't the only one who feels like that. July had been a bad month for everyone on the team.

Humans also seem to have a habit of forgetting things – you know, important things, like remembering that a certain ass-kicking team of superheroes keeps saving Anahaim – and sometimes the world – from both Dragaunus and whatever nut-job of the week that crawled out of the sewers. One whole year of fighting evil, and it wasn't until recently that Klegghorn stopped chasing their tails around, trying to throw them all into jail. They're cool with him now, but many humans still talk trash about them. If you look up 'ungrateful' in the dictionary, there will definitely be a picture of a human. An ugly one. Like Klegghorn.

But all in all, Earth is a pretty cool place to be stranded on, most of the time. He's getting used to living on Earth and being surrounded by humans. There's very little they can do to surprise him these days.

However...

Once in a while, something will happen, something that will hit him like a hard slam from the left and the humans will once again prove just how utterly bizarre they are. This is one of those days.

It had been a dull day until now. One of those cool-down days that they have every once in a while with no training at all, and if they are lucky, no call for saving the world. Everyone usually just split up and does their own thing until dinner time, where they usually eat something new that Grin has cooked up, because for some reason Grin likes to cook on his free days. Says that it's a different kind of meditation. Not that Nosedive's complaining, he loves Grin's food.

Anyway, the day didn't start the way he'd planned, because when he arrived, Thrash and Mookie was closing down the store. The two of them was going to New York for the weekend, something that Nosedive had forgotten about right until that moment. He'd asked them if they wanted him to come along, but Mookie'd said that it was for 'family only'. He still remembers the grimace she'd made when she said that.

So, he'd been bored out of his mind, with no inspiration on how to entertain himself without his best human buds. He could have gone and looked for the others, but it didn't feel right at the time. They might not have appreciated Nosedive crashing their down-time day. No matter how lonely he felt at the time, he isn't that much of a jerk.

After strolling around Anahaim Square and just window-shopping for a while, he finally decided to go into the Anaheim Toy Store. Yeah, he knows that he's way too old for most of the stuff in there, but sometimes they have new cool electrical toys.

He was looking at the latest models of RC-cars when a kid ran by in full speed, not looking where he was going. Predictably, the kid ran straight into a wheel of plushies. Both the kid and the plushies went down with a loud clatter and the kid immediately started crying.

Before he knew it, Nosedive was trying to console the kid because hey, he's a hero, and heroes don't just stand there looking stupid when a kid is crying right in front of them. Fortunately, the kid was a fan and immediately stopped crying when Nosedive pulled him up on his feet. Long story short, the mother arrived, he gave them his autograph, he waved to them as they left, the end. Only now there were plushies all over the floor, and since Nosedive was on a hero-roll, he decided to pick them up himself instead of calling for whoever was at the register.

That's when he realized what he was actually holding. And _that's_ when he started freaking out.

Which brings him to the here and now, with him staring down at the plushie in his hands, almost not believing what he's seeing.

Now, Nosedive has seen some weird stuff – he once saw the Chameleon in a pink, glittery dress, singing opera in a high-pitch voice, and that's definitely in his Top-10-list-of-things-he-never-wants-to-see-again – but this thing he's holding in his feathery hands right this moment has to be one of the weirdest, creepiest things he has ever seen in his life.

It's a plushie of a duck. A duck with white feathers, a yellow beak, webbed feet and everything that makes a duck a duck. He's also wearing a blue hat, a sailor's uniform and a large grin, but the problem isn't what he's wearing. It's what he's _not_ wearing.

Nosedive glances down at the collection of plushies and finds three more like the one in his hand. He looks at each plushie carefully. Yup, he was afraid of that.

None of them are wearing pants.

"Hey, Nosedive. What's up?"

The voice coming from behind him startles him half to death and his head snaps up from the plushie. It's Jessica, the girl who works here. She's a friend of Thrash and Mookie that he's known for a couple of months. She's got pink pigtails and is always chewing bubble gum. She's cool.

Maybe she'll be able to explain this weirdness, because Nosedive really is starting to wonder if he's been pulled into an episode of the Twilight Zone. If that's the case, he's gonna be really annoyed. It's supposed to be a free day, dang it!

"Hey, Jess. Um... What is this?" he says faintly, pointing at the plushie.

She looks down at it, and raises an eyebrow. "Didn't think you were much for plushies, Dive."

"I'm not! And you didn't answer my question! What is this?!" Oh, man. He really hadn't meant for that to come out as high-pitched as it did. He's starting to sound like the Chameleon!

Jess seems surprised at his tone, but still anwers coolly, "That's Donald Duck. He's a famous Disney figure."

"Famous? Like... how famous?" he squeaks. Worse than the high-pitch. Why is his voice so funky all of a sudden?!

"Like, world famous?"

"A-And you sell these?" Another squeak.

Jess shrugs. "Well, duh."

"To kids?" Tiny squeak.

"Of course to kids! It's Donald Duck." "What's going on here, Dive?

That's it. He can't take it anymore.

"But-but... he doesn't even have any pants! He's strutting around half-naked... and, and not the good way, but the kind that makes you call the cops!" he yells, while waving the plushie in the air. The parents are looking at him weirdly and pulling away their kids, but to heck with that! He doesn't even care if there's a picture of him on the front-page in the newspapers tomorrow with the headlines 'Duck goes loco in toy store'. He needs answers!

Jess looks at him like _he's_ stupid. "He's a duck."

" _I'm_ a duck!" he shrieks. "And let me tell you something lady; we do not run around with our bare butts waving in the air!"

She snorts and puts her hands on her hips. "Calm down, Dive. He's just a fictional character. I don't see what the big deal is."

He takes a deep breath. And another. And another. When he speaks again, his notices with relief that his voice has finally gone somewhat back to normal. "Let me put it this way then, Jess. If you found out people on Puckworld had plushies of humans not wearing any pants or underwear, wouldn't you be weirded out?"

She purses her lips, tilting her head slightly to the side. "...Yeah, okay. I can see how you would find that a little weird."

"I know, right?" He looks down at the toy again, and shudders. That does not stop being creepy. A thought suddenly hits him. "You said he's a Disney character. Does that mean that there are actual movies about him?"

"Movies _and_ cartoons," Jess says before blowing a small bubble that pops immediately. She growls and reach into her pocket for another one, pops it into her mouth and starts chewing.

"You're pulling my tail-feathers," he says, flatly. There's no way there are actual movies with this thing. He refuses to believe it. Not even the humans can be that weird.

She shakes her head, causing her pink pigtails to swing, and says, much to his disbelief, "Nope, there are tons of them. They've been making them since the 30s."

Nosedive quickly does the math in his head, and the number he comes up with makes his beak drop in surprise. "60 years?!"

"Hm-hm," Jess hums before someone calls her name from the cashier. She spins around with a flourish, and with a wave and a, "Holler if you need anything else!" she walks back to her work station.

Nosedive looks down at the plushie with new-found respect. Wow. 60 years. Nosedive can't remember even one cartoon character back on Puckworld that lasted that long. Half-naked he may be, but there must be something about Donald Duck if kids loves him so much.

But man, Dive considers himself to be a pretty wild spirit, but even he feels that the duck plushie is a little much. And if he thinks that, just imagine what the rest of the team would think.

The thought lingers. _Just imagine what the rest of the team would think_. Nosedive grins. Looks like his boredom is about to be cured.

"Hey, Jess? You mind showing me where some of those cartoons are?"

/

"Are you watching porn in the living room, Nosedive?!"

Nosedive chokes on his popcorn at his brother's incredulous question, because _wow_ did he not expect that question. "What?! Ew, no, gross, bro! It's a cartoon!"

This is not going the way Nosedive had planned at all.

Nosedive immediately made some popcorn and put on the cartoon on the big screen TV as soon as he got home from the toy-store. He figured that he should take a look at the cartoon first before showing it to the others, just so he knew exactly what he was dealing with. The best thing about seeing anyone's reaction is when you yourself knows what's coming.

As the first episode started playing, he hadn't really known what he was in for. Of course he expected it to be weird, and it definitely is. A half-naked duck running around quacking angrily at people, who doesn't look like humans, but instead looks like dogs for some reason, is extremely weird.

What he didn't expect was to find the cartoon absolutely hilarious.

He thought that he might watch a couple of episodes, then later capture the others reactions to it when they saw it – because that would be a row of totally awesome Kodak moments – before putting the movies in the deepest, darkest corner of his closet and never watch them again.

Nope. That didn't happen. For some reason, he can't stop watching the show.

He had been on hour two of watching episode after episode when Wing walked in and delivered his disturbing statement. Speaking of said team captain...

He feels Wing sit down to the left of him. For once his brother is free from both body armor and the Mask; it makes him look smaller, though still bigger than Nosedive. The two of them are silent as they watch Donald get blown up on the screen. After a minute of watching the cartoon duck's shenanigans, Wing finally asks, tentatively, "Dive... what exactly are you watching?"

"Probably the most absurd thing to ever grace a TV-screen, big bro," Dive says around a mouthful of popcorn. "But it's actually pretty funny, once you get past the weirdness."

Another explosion.

"That's a duck." Wing sounds unsure. Nosedive doesn't blame him.

"Yup. Donald Duck is his name. And getting angry at everyone and everything is his game."

Wing crosses his arms and frowns in that special disapproving way that only he can pull off. "Why doesn't he have any pants on?"

Nosedive shrugs. "Beats me. He's apparently a big cartoon celebrity among humans, especially among kids."

"Kids watches this?!" Wing exclaims, apparently as shocked as Nosedive was when he first heard the same thing. It makes him feel a little better about his freak-out earlier. Still, he should probably apologize to Jess tomorrow.

"Uh-huh." He chows down on another handful of popcorn, waiting for his brother's verdict.

A moment passes before Wing chuckles, shakes his head in amusement and leans back on the couch. "And here I thought we had already seen humans at their weirdest."

Nosedive grins. "You're telling me, bro. I almost swallowed my tongue when I first found a plushie of this thing."

Wildwing opens his mouth to answer, but is interrupted by Mallory's voice at the doorway. " _What_ are you two watching?"

"Cartoons," they say at the same time, not looking away from the screen as the rest of the team spill into the room. Mallory looks pinched. Tanya's eyes are wide open and staring at the screen. Duke has an amused quirk to his eyebrow. Grin has his arms crossed over an apron with the words _Zen Chief_ on it.

"That is not like any cartoon I've ever seen."

Nosedive snorts. "Well, you've not exactly been perusing the works of human animation the way I have, Mal-Mal, so you're opinion on this matter is insufficient. I, however, know my stuff and I... totally agree. This is off the scale weird." He grins at his brother. "Wing thought it was porn at first."

Everyone looks at Wing, who blushes at the attention. "I saw tail-feathers and - well, Dive's a teenager! You never know!"

Nosedive can do nothing but gape at him. "I wouldn't watch it in the living room!"

"You would if you knew it would freak me out," Wing mutters, and honestly? He's not wrong.

"Where would I even get that? We're stranded on a human planet, if you don't remember."

"Duke." And, yup, that answers that. Duke only grins and doesn't even protest the accusation, which doesn't surprise Nosedive in the slightest. The real question is how in the world his dear brother even knows about that – but that's a question for another time.

"That's just biz- that's biza- weird on all levels!" Tanya exclaims as Donald throws a vase and laughs when it connects with the target's head. "No wonder the humans are crazy if this's what their kids are watching."

"It's slapstick humor. It's supposed to be like this." Duke reaches down, grabs a handful of the popcorn and starts throwing them one by one into his mouth, crunching noisily as he bits down on them before continuing, "I remember some shows like this back on Puckworld. But those characters were at least fully dressed and not half-naked like this guy."

Nosedive chokes and starts coughing as a piece of popcorn goes down the wrong pipe. "S-Spoke to soon. Now he's totally naked." Oh, man. And here Nosedive had thought that this show couldn't get any weirder.

One of Mallory's eyebrow twitch as she watches what's happening on the screen. "So he can go around with no pants, but as soon as he loses his shirt he gets modest? What kind of backwards logic is that?" she says incredulously.

"Ha, what an idiot," Duke says, jumping over the back of the couch to sit down beside Nosedive and immediately making a second grab for the popcorn.

"Hey!" Nosedive yells and shifts the popcorn to his other side, which turns out to be a mistake as Wing grabs a handful with a sly grin. "Aw, come on, guys! I made that for me!"

"You shouldn't have this much popcorn before dinner anyway, Dive. You'll lose your appetite," Wing the hypocrite says around his mouthful of popcorn. He swallows it down and then looks at the others. "You're all back earlier than I expected. Did something happen?"

"Haven't you noticed? It's pouring outside. No fun shopping if my new clothes are gonna get soaked," Mallory grumbles and sits down on one of the chairs.

"Ditto. Tech and water d-don't mix well at all," Tanya chimes in before sitting down herself.

"We're underground, girl. A little hard to notice the rain when there are no windows."

"What about you, Duke?" Wing asks, ignoring Nosedive's input, which is just rude.

"Grew bored reading," Duke says with a smirk, his eye fixed on the screen. "Met the girls and Grin on the way here."

"Grin?"

"Dinner's almost ready," is all he says.

"But I gotta say, I didn't expect to see..." Duke hesitates before gesturing vaguely at the screen, " _this..._ when we got here _._ Where did you even find this stuff, kid?"

"Found a plushie of the duck in the toy store and freaked out. Jess told me there were cartoons and I had to watch them. I was gonna get your reactions on camera, but I got a little..." Another angry quack from the screen and a snort escapes him before he can stop it. He snaps his hand over his beak, but it's already too late. All of them are looking at him with amusement now. He blushes slightly. "...side-tracked."

"Enjoyed it more than you thought you would, huh?" Wildwing grins teasingly at him. Huffing, Nosedive punches Wing's shoulder. Of course, it does nothing to remove the grin since his brother is basically a solid rock of muscles.

"I'm not surprised. It's certainly your kind of stupid humor, alright," Mallory snarks. Nosedive gives her a haughty sniff, because what does _she_ know about comedy, anyway?

"How long is that guy gonna run around naked? It's not that funny," Mallory continues. Nosedive glances at the screen and sees that, yes, Donald Duck is still running around naked. He really hopes that the cartoon duck finds some clothes soon. Not just because it's creepy; a good comedy show should never milk a joke dry.

Wildwing chuckles. "Actually, this reminds me of Dive when he was just a baby duckling."

Nosedive pales. Oh uh. He knows that tone. That's the I'm-gonna-tell-something-embarrassing-about-my-baby-bro-tone. The rest of the team seem to have recognized the tone as well, because all of them, even Grin, lean forward in anticipation. "Oh?" Mallory asks, a sly grin on her beak. "Did he used to run around naked?"

"Oh yeah," Wing, the dirty traitor, laughs, "especially when he was going to take a bath. Dive hated it and always tried to get away from our parents whenever the time came."

"I can totally picture that," Duke says with a smirk, jabbing Nosedive playfully in the side with his finger. "Scared of a little water, champ?"

"Hey!" Nosedive splutters, wiggling away from the tickling sensation. "I was _really_ tiny! I barely remember any of it!"

"Well, luckily for you I do," Wildwing says, putting his right arm around Nosedive and pulling him close for a light noogie. Nosedive grumbles, but doesn't really try to get out of it for three reasons. One, Wing is way stronger than he is. Two, he might spill the popcorn on the floor and that would be a crime against duck-kind everywhere. Three... He doesn't exactly hate it.

"I remember this one time in the winter," Wing continues, and damnit, here we go, "He managed to escape from mom and started running around the house in full speed. Dad and I couldn't keep up him! He was all over the place, screaming "No bath! No bath!"

Nosedive groans. Duke snickers.

"Then Canard suddenly opened the front-door, and I don't know what exactly Dive was thinking, but as soon as he saw the door was open he just ran straight out into the snow!"

Tanya snorts. Mallory has started shaking in her seat.

"Then just as fast as he had run out, he came in screaming 'Coldcoldcoldcold', ran straight past us and jumped straight into the bath!"

Everyone but Grin bursts out laughing, Mallory slapping her seat in her hysterics, and though Grin doesn't howl with the rest of them, he's got an amused smile on his beak. Nosedive lets his arms flop over his eyes with an embarrassed groan and feels his cheeks get warm.

"Aw, come on, little brother," Wing says as he ruffles Nosedive's hair. "It was cute. But, I gotta tell you, we had a real time of it to try and convince you to get out of the bath."

Nosedive scoffs, but can't help the small smile the creeps up on him. Not because it's actually funny, of course not. Laughing's just contagious, that's all.

"Don't worry kid," Duke says after he's finally stopped laughing, his tone still tinged with amusement, "we all got embarrassing stories. Tell you what, why don't we make an evening of it?"

"What, just sit around telling embarrassing stories?"

"Exactly. None of us have any other plans for tonight, right? Drake One will alert us if anything happens. It's raining cats and dogs outside. What better ways are there to pass a rainy day than telling stupid stories?"

"You seriously think that none of us have better things to do?" Mallory scoffs.

Duke winks at her. "I'll tell you about the time I got beat up by an old lady~," he practically sings.

Nosedive snorts, almost expecting Duke to back down and say that he's kidding, because seriously? The Great Duke L'Orange, beaten by an old lady? "Did she hit you with her purse?" he snarks.

Much to his surprise Duke just smirks at him. "Nah, kid, with a cane. Broke my arm when I tried to deflect it; that woman had a mean swing. And before you ask, Wildwing; _no_ , I didn't break into a poor little innocent lady's house. In fact, _she_ broke into _my_ place."

"...Why?" Nosedive asks him.

Duke waves his finger in the air. "I'll tell you... if Mallory agrees for an equivalent exchange." He flashes her his killer-grin – which, for the record, has never worked on Mallory and probably never will. "What do you say, sweetheart?"

Mallory crosses her arms over her chest in defiance, but Nosedive can tell that she's as curious as he is. "I could go for it," Wing suddenly speaks up from beside him. Mallory gives him a quick glance, annoyed, but soon sighs and mutters "Fine" under her breath. Nosedive knew she would. That story seems way too interesting _not_ to hear. Besides, since Wing's given his OK, she'll probably pretend that it's a military operation, just so she can tell herself that she's not doing anything that could be taken as _fun_ or _a waste of time_. Mallory's just weird like that.

"It would be nice to have some recu- to recu- recu- rest," Tanya says meekly.

An explosion from the screen make all of them turn their eyes to the screen and watch as Donald blinks at the camera, his beak and feathers black with sooth from another explosion.

Mallory groans miserably. "Do we _have_ to have that on? This show is stupid."

"If you survived the storm, you won't be bothered by the rain."

Everyone blinks at Grin.

Finally, Nosedive says, "I don't get it, big guy."

"I think Grin is trying to say that any embarrassing stories we share today will be tame in comparison with a half-naked duck with anger issues," Duke says and chuckles as Donald starts quacking with rage.

"Fair enough," Mallory agrees and starts walking towards the kitchen." But if we're gonna sit here and blab about embarrassing stuff that's happened to us, I'm getting some chow. No way am I doing this on an empty stomach."

"Um, I'll go help her. Don't want her dis- disse- break anything in the kitchen," Tanya stutters out before quickly hurrying after the redhead.

Duke links his fingers and stretches his arms up into the air, groaning in satisfaction at the crack the movement brings. "What's on the menu today, Grin?"

"Chole bhature. I will go make the last of the preparations." And with a slow nod to Wing, the gentle giant follows the girls into the kitchen.

Duke gives Grin's back a thumbs up. "Awesome. I love chole bhature." He waits until Grin walks into the kitchen before turning to Wing. "What the heck is chole bhature?"

Wing shrugs. "Beats me. But I'm sure it's delicious. Has Grin ever let us down with his cooking?"

Duke chuckles. "Excellent point. I hope it's warm; I could go for something hot on a dreary day like this."

"What, you get aching bones on rainy days?" Wing teases him.

Duke snorts good-naturally. "How about having some respect for your elders, punk?"

As the two of them continue their playful conversation over his head, Nosedive takes in his surroundings and realizes that none of this would have been possible if they'd never gone through the worm-hole. This group of vastly different ducks is his family and he loves them, but, aside from him and Wildwing, if they had never crash-landed on Earth, they probably wouldn't have ever gotten to know each other. Heck, Mallory and Duke would have probably ended up being enemies if Dragaunus hadn't come along, with Mallory being in the military and Duke being the most wanted duck on Puckworld.

But now, they're all not only a team, but a family. It's the little things that give away the difference.

He can see Duke leaning back on the couch, completely relaxed as he talks to Wing; Duke, who once told Nosedive that he's been running from the law since he was a teenager and never really had the luxury of relaxing when he worked with the Brotherhood of the Blade, since they could have stabbed him in the back at any time. But right here, right now, he looks like he doesn't have a care in the world.

Duke is... well, he's pretty awesome. Since he's the oldest and Nosedive is the youngest, he's been taking it upon himself to try to be a mentor of sorts. Nosedive scoffs under his breath. Not that he's any good at it, but he's fun to hang around with. He pretty much never scolds Nosedive – they're both 'it's better to ask for forgiveness than for permission'-kind of ducks – so whenever Nosedive's got the itch to something maybe-a-little-crazy, or at least something that he's not really sure that Wing will approve of – which isn't a lot because Wing is even _more_ awesome than anyone – he'll go to Duke, who's always up for some mischief. Seriously, if it wasn't for the gray in his feathers, you might have thought that Duke was Nosedive's age with the total glee he got from getting into trouble. But hey, birds of a feather flock together and all that jazz.

He also has tons of stories to share, and for some reason, Nosedive seems to be the only one who's interested to listen to them, which is a bummer. 'Cause, wow, are these some good stories! Duke's been everywhere on Puckworld, and has met a lot of famous ducks in his life-time – granted, most of those times he was working as a thief, but that still doesn't stop it from being cool.

Nosedive's favorite story is about the time Duke was gunning for a large jewel called "The Drakeonian's Envy" – the name is from some mythology that Nosedive learned in school, but now he doesn't really remember how it went – and sneaked in during a masquerade ball hosted by the rich guy who owned the jewel as one of the guests. At the end of the evening he had gotten the jewel, a case of extremely expensive smoke sticks and, if you could believe him, a kiss from the rich guy's daughter. Nosedive doesn't push him about whether it's actually true or not. It makes for a great story, and he thinks that's what Duke's been working towards his whole life: to be larger than life and leave a legend behind after he's gone. If anyone ever asks him about Duke, Nosedive will tell the stories just exactly like Duke told them to him.

Nosedives feels a small smile form on his beak at the sight of the older drake looking so relaxed beside him. Duke really is a good guy, no matter what anyone else (Mallory) says. He deserves a break once in a while, which is why Nosedive resists the urge to poke him in his unprotected side and instead focuses his attention elsewhere.

He can hear the girls talking in the kitchen. Shy-slash-Sassy Tanya and Dynamite Mallory, in the same room without anything blowing up. The two of them did not gotten along at all when the team first formed. The first few weeks after they had crash-landed, Wildwing had to get between them more than once, or rather, he had to grab hold of Mallory so she wouldn't trounce Tanya, as Tanya's sarcastic quips were really effective at getting under Mallory's skin. But now they're like sisters, not only to each other, but to Nosedive, as well.

Tanya's the only one who appreciates technology as much as Nosedive does, even if it's because of different reasons: Nosedive likes the results, Tanya digs the engineering. Sometimes the two of them will just sit around talking about the latest technostuff for hours.

And she's funny! That had not been something anyone would have ever expected from Tanya, since she's so shy and stuttery most of the time, but she can be hilarious, and Nosedive should know, he's the master of comedy, after all! But where Nosedive's humor is much more of a traditional, imitational, joke-ational brand, Tanya's is much more morbid, dry and sarcastic. Once, he watched her look down the barrel of a giant killer-robot, and dryly state, "Boy, I do love being blown up first thing in the morning," before Duke sneaked up behind it and cut off its power cable. Granted, he did it on her order, but that only meant that she had actually planned to say what she did beforehand, and Nosedive has nothing but respect for anyone who's willing to go that far for a joke. Tanya's cool in his book.

And as much as he likes to drive Mallory crazy with his pranks and sometimes think that she really should relax more, she's pretty cool, too. She may not have a sense of humor, but she does love explosions, and it's always fun to see which thing of the day she's gonna make go boom.

She's also weirdly protective, and seems to have the 'No one can mess with him but me'-attitude when it comes to Nosedive. If Nosedive gets in the line of sight and Wing isn't there to push him out of the way, Mallory is usually the one to do it. Of course, she'll give him hell for it and rub the fact that he had needed to be saved in his face like forever, but that's just how she shows how she cares about him. Just like Nosedive shows how much he likes her by putting worms in her shoes.

Nosedive's never had a big sister, but he's pretty sure that Mallory fills that role pretty well.

Tanya mumbles something that makes Mallory cackle loudly. Yup, the girls are awesome, alright.

He can smell the food Grin's been cooking, and it makes his beak water: he can almost taste it from here. He knows that it's gonna be delicious, it always is. Cooking is one of Grin's hidden talents, one that you would never even have guessed about Grin just by looking at him. But not only does he cook; he writes, he sows, he volunteers at an orphanage twice a week. Basically, he's a giant softy... unless you're an evildoer, of course. Then he'll punch you through a wall.

So he's a really great guy, Grin. But in the beginning everyone thought that Grin was simply a muscle-massed giant who spouted weird sayings to sound smart; even Canard, who'd been the one to recruit him in the first place. But, man, had they all been proven wrong.

Grin doesn't have Tanya's techno-smarts, Mallory's strategic mind, Duke's sneaking-agility, or Wing's leadership skills, but he's the one everyone goes to when they need someone to listen, because Grin is the best at listening. That had actually been the thing that bonded the two of them in the beginning: Nosedive always talking a mile a minute, while Grin just listened to his ramblings, and Dive knew he listened, because he always remembered what they had been talking about if Nosedive brought it up later. Nosedive once asked him if he ever found him annoying. Grin only smiled and told him that he just liked having someone talk to him since he didn't have many friends when he grew up. That conversation had been the main catalyst for the Bowling Incident of March '97, which the two of them will never talk about ever again, no matter how funny it was at the time.

He is the first drake beside Wing that Nosedive has ever called 'bro'. No offense to Duke, but he will always be more of a cool uncle that you really shouldn't like, but you do.

Speaking of brothers... Nosedive can feel the comfortable weight of Wildwing's arm around his shoulders. It makes him feel safe in a way that nothing could ever replace; the same way that no one could ever replace Wildwing.

The others may have become his family, but Wildwing had _always_ been his family, and for a long time, the _only_ family he had. It had been Wing who kept him safe after their parents died, after the saurians attacked, and after they crashed on Earth. He always tries to make sure that Nosedive's eating properly, always calls him on his comm if he's out one minute after the curfew and always stays with him in the infirmary if he's sick or injured – unless there's a Drake One-emergency, and even then Nosedive usually has to reassure him again and again before he will get out there to save the day. And this is only when Nosedive's actually conscious enough to say something. He remembers Tanya once telling him that the only duck that can drive her more crazy than Nosedive is Wing asking her question after question when he's worried about his 'baby bro'.

Some would think that he's being overprotective, but for Nosedive it's a constant reassurance that Wildwing always will be there for him. Nosedive is 100% sure that even if everyone else on the team for some reason suddenly left him behind, Wing would stay. Of course, Nosedive would do the same for him any day.

And also, for the record, Wing makes an awesome pillow. 10 points all around for the greatest big brother of all time.

Nosedive smiles at his big brother. Surrounded by the his team, his family, he knows that things really are alright.

Wing notices that Nosedive's looking up at him. He smiles back at him, his eyes twinkling happily, before once again ruffling through Nosedive's hair, much more gently than before. Nosedive closes his eyes, shuffles closer and leans into him with a content sigh, waiting for the others to bring the grub.

Yeah, this is alright. Weird humans, conquering saurians and half-naked angry cartoon ducks aside, this is all alright.

/

Epilogue:

"Hey, there's a girl duck!"

"Oh geez, she's not wearing any pants either, is she?"

"Well, at least she's wearing a... sort of dress."

"That's not a dress. It doesn't even go past her tailfe- her tailfea- tailfe- her butt."

"Wow. I used to have to pay money to have a half-naked lady on the screen."

"DUKE!"

"What?"


End file.
